John Bleasdale

For all its postmodern smarts, La La Land has a heart as big as its Cinemascope screen. This is primarily down to the two leads, without their performances it would only be an empty, if impressive, exercise in dizzying technical skill and style.

The Wakhan Front's script is finely-balanced, allowing the possibly supernatural to slowly impinge without resorting to genre clichés.

Captain Fantastic is a slickly made comedy with a witty, politically articulate script and some wonderful cinematography by former Jacques Audiard regular Stéphane Fontaine.

The performances are fine across the board and Nørgaard keeps things moving efficiently, but this is stylish but televisual fare, ram-packed with familiar hardboiled and shopworn tropes.

The more conventional thriller element demands that the transformation from enmity to something like love is too swiftly accomplished to be properly convincing.

The President has an urgent relevance to all too many countries around the world, including those touched by the Arab Spring; a darkly comic and poignant portrait of an Ozymandian fall from grace and the subsequent damage that ensues.

There is much to like about Elle, first and foremost a witty and bold performance from Huppert and the generally seasoned ensemble.

For all the glib élan on display, there is very little being said, above and beyond the slickness of a well-tuned melodrama. The plot always risks revealing its essential silliness and there isn't much wit or humour to alleviate the mood.

This is a rich and complex take on guilt and anger.

A dark and slightly hysterical portrait of fundamentalist fever.

Guiraudie's humour is self-referential and at times hilarious. His tendency to shock might seem adolescent but he's also careful to identify taboos that perhaps shouldn't be taboos at all.

Though the farce is occasionally funny, it's as bloated and windy as its comedy policeman Inspector Machin.

At almost three hours, Puiu's latest is as long as most family events are, but the observations made are brilliantly bright and there is love here, after all.

A superb character study of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The whole set-up risks being all too winsome, but Jarmusch has always been a quiet punk: his most radical assertion is believing, despite everything, in the essential goodness of people.

Gnecco has both breadth and subtlety. His Neruda is a complex and fascinating character study, a man fastidiously vain of his status but unconvinced by his own performance even as he enraptures a nation.

Penn's film doesn't entertain greatly nor does it have much coherent to say.

The nighttime tungsten orange of the street lighting and the urine-coloured neon of the interiors makes for a grueling visual experience which is why the daylight of the latter-half offers precious relief.

Following the disappointing period dalliance of Jimmy's Hall, Ken Loach's latest I, Daniel Blake is something of a return to form. It stands as a succinct and furious raging against the dying of the light, or more accurately the snuffing of the light by a privatised and punitive system more intent on lowering the figures than caring for those in need.

The film reveals its twists and turns with a delicate hand and always manages to stay one step ahead of the audience, even as most of those watching will surrender to the hypnotic erotic charge that runs through the film.

The material is weak, overly familiar and cliché-ridden. Dolan throws the cinematic sink at it but his latest feels like a shorter, not particularly watchable sequel to August, Osage County.

Despite treading some familiar territory, British director David Mackenzie's new film Hell or High Water proves itself a brilliantly executed, sharply written genre gem.

As Personal Shopper progresses a rather predictable series of twists almost drain the story of interest.

American Honey ticks off all of the indie clichés. Fireworks? Check. Standing up in convertible with your arms outstretched? Check. Grubby children? Check. But all of this could be forgiven, or at least put up with, if the film wasn't so long and meandering.

It should confirm Nichols' reputation as a mature filmmaker of great tact and intelligence.

The fact of the matter is that Refn has now become so predictably shocking that the truly shocking thing for him to do would be to make a film without attempting to shock.

A run-of-the-mill, plodding drama, the 'social realism' of which never feels particularly real.

There are numerous delights for the patient and the two leads give prize-worthy performances but at just under three hours this is one drawn-out gag that almost outstays its welcome.